After the Fall: The Fallen Men, #4 Page 9

  “That woman is under arrest. You can’t leave with her,” Harold Danner demanded.

  “I think Mr. White proved that you really don’t wanna play that card, given what went down today,” I argued, my voice a long, low drawl just to piss him off.

  “The entire lot of you are criminals. Don’t think that just because my father and his father before him couldn’t bring The Fallen to their knees that I will fail too.”

  Objectively speakin’, Harold looked a fuckuva lot like his son, Lion, but the two Danners couldn’t have been more different if they tried.

  SS Danner was about power at any cost, about what he felt was right and wrong over what he could have known in his heart to be true.

  Lion Danner was everythin’ moral, courageous, and good. He’d read the Harry Potter books with me when I’d lived with him, and he had always seemed to me the definition of Gryffindor, a hero through to his very bones.

  It was both sad and fuckin’ ironic that he’d have such a father.

  “You’ve got a vendetta that’ll burn you up faster than you can aim that fire at us,” I told him, calm, cool, so collected I could see it infuriate him further with the tic in his jaw. “This isn’t about justice for you, Danner. It’s about wantin’ to be the biggest man in town. Hate to break it to you, but you’re in bed with a bigger man. When Javier Ventura’s done with you, he’ll stomp you out. And as for us?”

  I stepped back into line with my brothers, who seamlessly broke rank to let Cress, Zeus, and me slide into place.

  “You’ve got nothin’ on The Fallen, and you won’t ever get the best of us ’cause we’re straight up better men than you could ever dream of bein’.”

  “But Danner,” Zeus added, his voice just as weaponized as mine, “you come for more Fallen women and our families, and I’m tellin’ you now, straight up, The Fallen will come for you.”

  King

  * * *

  There was someone in the house.

  I woke up with a start and that knowledge, as if the intruder had triggered some invisible alarm in my head. Cress was in her habitual place sprawled half on top of me, her silky hair fanned over my chest, an arm curled around my waist. Carefully, I dislodged her and rolled silently off the bed to crouch at its side. I had a shotgun under the bed, the knife on the bedside table, and a Walther P99 gun under the mattress.

  I opted for the knife and the handgun, tucking the latter into my waistband as I crept from the bedroom onto the landin’ and then down the stairs. It was only when I reached the bottom that I heard the fierce whispers of two men arguin’ by the sliding doors off the livin’ room.

  When I pushed the door fully open, it was to find Wrath and Cressida’s brother, Lysander, locked together. Wrath had his gun at Sander’s gut, but Sander had him in a headlock with his own weapon trained on his temple.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I asked, unable to hide the humour in my voice.

  “Claims he knows ya,” Wrath growled.

  “I fuckin’ well do,” Sander snapped. “My fuckin’ sister lives here. If you’d given me half a bloody second to talk, I would’a told you that.”

  “Cress?” Wrath asked, though he didn’t release his hold.

  “Let him go,” I told them both through my laughter. “Bunch’a idiots, the both of ya. Why the hell are you tryin’ to break in our house at this time?”

  They hesitated and then broke swiftly apart, both takin’ enormous steps away from the other and plantin’ me in the middle of them. They were both huge ass men with more muscle than sense sometimes, but I wasn’t concerned. I’d grown up watchin’ Zeus mediate between men like that, and I knew all his tricks.

  “Came to tell you the ’serkers are lookin’ to pull off a highway robbery when you lot do your run down the coast tomorrow. Seems they got a tip-off from someone,” Wrath told me as he leaned against the railin’ and crossed his arms, grimly eyein’ down Lysander. “Wonder who that could’a been?”

  “Like hell it was me,” Sander spat, looking nothin’ like his pretty sister and everythin’ like an ex-con.

  I slapped a palm on his chest before he could lunge across the deck and kill Wrath. “Yeah, we believe ya. Still don’t know why you’re here, though. Cress said she hasn’t seen or heard from you in a fuckin’ age. Why now?”

  Sander glared at Wrath then back at me. “Maybe we could talk ’bout this after fuckin’ Goliath over there fucks off?”

  “Or maybe I should stay to make sure you aren’t a lyin’ sack a shit tryin’ to get back with a sister who basically excommunicated you already,” Wrath countered.

  Sander stared at me in shocked horror, obviously surprised Wrath was a good enough friend to know about our history.

  I shrugged, not at all sorry because truth be told, I still held a wicked grudge against him for puttin’ Cress in the spot he did with the Nightstalker fuckers who abducted her and hammered nails through her palms.

  “He’s a member of the Berserkers,” Sander pointed out. “You really think you can trust him?”

  “You were a member of Cress’s family, and you betrayed her, so you tell me how much loyalty means?” I countered.

  The older man cut his eyes to the ground and chewed on the inside of his cheek to level out his ashamed anger.

  I left him to it.

  “When’re they aimin’ to come at us?” I asked Wrath.

  “Off Exit 78 on the Sea to Sky highway.”

  I nodded, pulling up the visuals of that stretch of road in my memory easily because I’d been ridin’ it since I was a boy.

  “Right. Let ’em, there’s no way you can convince Reaper not to go through with it, not without givin’ yourself away. We’ll put a tracker in the bags, stuff half of them with nonsense and track them back to their warehouse. Assumin’ that’s where they’d take the loot?”

  Wrath nodded.

  “Right. We’ll have a second group of brothers go down the mountain earlier and wait to follow your crew to the warehouse. We’ll hijack them there, get our shit and theirs, and show them what it is to fuck with The Fallen.”

  Wrath started at me for a long second, brows cocked, tatted arms flexed as he stroked his short beard.

  “Comin’ into your own,” he said finally. “See what they say about you bein’ a smart motherfucker.”

  I shrugged, but my grin was wicked with arrogance. “Thanks for givin’ us the heads-up. Make it convincin’ when you see me, yeah? If this goes off without a hitch, I’ll finally get patched in.”

  “And when you do, you’ll nominate me to patch over,” he reminded me of the deal we’d struck over a year ago when we’d first started shootin’ the shit because Kylie and I’d made friends in our psychology and business seminar at UBC.

  “Yeah, brother,” I agreed, steppin’ forward to clasp his hand and bring him in for a hug punctuated by a thump on the back. “I got you.”

  “Got you, brother,” Wrath promised before steppin’ back. “See ya tomorrow night.”

  I flicked my fingers at him in goodbye and rounded on Sander. “So, what brings you here in the dead of fuckin’ night? Cress is sleepin’.”

  “I figured.”

  He looked up at the window to our bedroom and sighed in a way I felt in my gut. He might not have been the best brother in the world, but we all made mistakes, and I got that more than most. I hadn’t been there to protect Harleigh Rose from her abusive, piece of shit boyfriend, and Sander hadn’t been there for Cress for most of her trials because of his own failings. Didn’t mean he didn’t wish it was different.

  “Heard she was hauled into the police station today. I just wanted to check in with you, see if she was all good, and if I could do anythin’ to help.”

  “Sander…” I blew out an exasperated breath and tugged my hands through my knotted curls. “Listen, man, you know I’m happy to let you know how she is when you drop in or give me a call, but you can’t just show up like this. She’ll reach out when she’s fuckin’ ready.�
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  He kicked the toe of his motorcycle boot against a loose stone and watched it pitch off the deck into the night. Despite being born into the same middle class, conservative family as Cress, Lysander had started down a different path a long fuckin’ time ago. Now, that wild lifestyle played out in the wrinkles beside his eyes from squintin’ and the brackets around his mouth. He’d played the part of a biker back when the Nightstalkers were still in town, but he hadn’t dropped the style, and he still wore a leather jacket and shit kickers as if he was just waitin’ for a club to reach out and take him on.

  I wanted to hate the man for the ways he’d fucked up with Cress, but it was hard to hate the how when you understood the why of something. And I got why he’d fucked up. Parents like theirs who didn’t give a shit about them would turn anyone into a less than wholesome version of themselves.

  “She means everythin’ to me,” he said quietly in his hoarse voice. “Can’t tell you how many nights I can’t sleep just thinkin’ about if she’s doin’ okay.”

  “She’s with me,” I said. “Of course, she’s fuckin’ okay.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded curtly, but the moonlight highlighted the way he grimaced. “Know you do a better job of protectin’ her than I ever could. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish I still had a part to play.”

  “Fuck…Listen, I’ll talk to her, but I’m not makin’ any promises. I’ve tried before, and she’s had none of it. Hate to break it to you, but she’s got a whole club full’a brothers who would die for her in a heartbeat. Not so sure she’ll forgive you just because she misses havin’ a sibling.”

  Sander nodded, still looking off over the railin’ into the ocean wet and black as spilled ink under the silver moon. His knuckles were white as he gripped the wood, and I knew he was sufferin’.

  “Appreciate it, man.” He had masses of hair just like my woman and the same honeyed kinda brown. I watched as he tucked it behind his ear the same way Cress woulda and felt pity pang through my chest.

  Never known a man so alone in the world and so wishin’ he wasn’t.

  “Only bein’ I loved my whole,” he admitted quietly. “My princess since I first held her, and she was just this tiny little thing, but every part’a that was so perfect it made my chest so tight, honest to Christ, I couldn’t breathe.”

  Which was why this happened, the late-night break-ins to get updates about Cress, because he was the kinda man who revolved like the earth around the sun that was his family. A man like me.

  Only Lysander Irons didn’t have a kickass dad and a wicked sister, a group of men like uncles and brothers and a fuckuva best friend like Mute.

  He only had a sister he’d hurt who’d cut him outta her life in a way she might not even let him back, but that was the only hope he had left.

  Hence the midnight chats.

  “Wouldn’t be talkin’ to you if I didn’t get that, man. Our sisters, our responsibility. It’s somethin’ that doesn’t ever end.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I’m guessin’ not.”

  I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to give it to him. “We all make mistakes. I worry every fuckin’ day about the choices I make, knowin’ they’ll affect my woman. It’s the only reason she doesn’t have my ring on her finger yet. I’m as much to blame for her bein’ out in danger as you and William were, and I still put her in danger––as the fuckin’ PD proved today––just by bein’ with her. The trick of it is to make it worth it every day. Think if you want back in with her, you just gotta find a way to prove that you love her in a way that’ll never die, even if, ’cause of the men we are, the day might come where we unintentionally put her in a position where she might be without her brother or her man, or we might be without her.”

  “So, you’re sayin’ make the danger of lovin’ a wild animal somehow appealing?” Lysander asked with a wry grin.

  I chuckled, slappin’ a hand against his shoulder, then squeezin’ him in comradery. “Yeah, man, that’s exactly what I’m sayin’. Now, we ’bout done? I got a woman in bed I have to get back to.”

  “Yeah.”

  I moved back into the house, but before I could close the slidin’ door, Sander’s tattooed fingers curled around it to stop me. When I met his gaze, I realized for the first time that he had the same whiskey eyes as my woman.

  “For the record, haven’t known her like I’d want to for the past four years, but I’ve never seen my sister happier than she is now with you. You want to marry her? Do it. If I know anythin’ about her anymore, it’s that she loved being a wife and would’a loved bein’ a mother. She was just doin’ it with the wrong guy.”

  I swallowed the possessive pain in my throat that always cropped up when I thought of my Cress with that asshole, William, and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I hesitated in the doorframe of our bedroom after I’d locked up, unable to keep myself from admirin’ my woman in our bed. She lay sprawled across the length of it as if she’d been searching for me in her sleep. The light poolin’ in through the window like molten silver cast a shine on the sweep of her thick hair and turned her skin into hills and valleys of semi-precious metal. Our little cat, Shadow, had found his way onto the bed and curled up on her outstretched hand, eager for her warmth.

  The sight of her like that comfortable and vulnerable in our bed hit me in the chest like a struck gong, the vibration of it echoin’ through my blood.

  I loved her so much, it frequently took my breath away, but at that moment, somehow, it stunned me yet again.

  When I got back to bed, skin cold against the incredible warmth of all Cressida’s bare flesh as I gently hauled her back over my body, I wondered about Sander and the part he’d played in our lives. He wasn’t a bad man, just a good man who’d gotten lost on his way and made some poor as fuck choices. I didn’t think he deserved to be cut out of our lives, not after helpin’ save Loulou, Bea, Harleigh Rose, and Mute from an ambush up at Zeus’s cabin three years ago, but it wasn’t my choice to make.

  The only choice I did have to make was whether to get my head outta my ass and marry the woman of my dreams.

  I’d always been the kinda man, even in the body of a boy, who knew what he wanted and fuckin’ took it. So why the hell was I acting like a scared little boy when I was faced with somethin’ that would make me happier than anythin’ ever had? The answer was obvious, that it meant more to me than anythin’ else ever had, but it didn’t make my hesitation any less cowardly.

  When it came down to it, I had to trust her.

  Last year when I’d been unsure what to do after graduation, it was my Cress who had suggested I prospect for The Fallen and combine my love of business with our family enterprises. I’d been shocked as fuck, but she’d only laughed her high, bell-like giggle and told me that it was about time I started on the path that had been my birthright.

  She’d stood by me through thick and thin, legal and illegal activities, without really batting an eye, and I hadn’t realized until then just how little tangible credit I gave her for that.

  It wasn’t that she was unready or unwillin’ to be the Iron Queen to my Fallen King… it was that I hadn’t been ready for the responsibility of draggin’ her entirely over to the dark side of life.

  I thought of her today, holdin’ her own against that pig, McDougal, defendin’ Ares like a wrathful mama bear, and I knew she was already gracefully sittin’ on that chrome throne in our underworld, ready and wantin’ to rule by my side.

  She had always been mine, since that first moment we locked eyes across the parkin’ lot at Mac’s Grocer, but now I understood that she was also ours; intractably Fallen.

  I ducked my head to press a kiss to her fragrant hair and ran some of the silken strands over my fingers just to feel her, like pinchin’ yourself when you think you’re dreamin’.

  “Mmm,” she hummed sleepily, stirring enough to rub her cheek sweetly against my chest. “Where’d you go?”

  “A stray cat,” I explained, as I had befo
re when Sander came callin’ to check on her.

  “You know he’ll just keep coming if you keep feeding him,” she mumbled.

  I swallowed my laughter. “Yeah, babe, I know.”

  King

  * * *

  Every biker has a love affair with the road. It’s the rush of the wind mouthin’ love bites into your cheeks, the pull of it in your hair like a lover’s familiar fingers, and the thrum of the bike between you and the rushin’ asphalt, akin to ridin’ a chargin’ horse into battle, both dangerous and heady. I hooted into the cold night air just to taste the ocean brine on my tongue. Nova cried out behind me, ridin’ gunner in our formation with me as road captain at the lead. We were all high on the ride, eatin’ up miles under our treads and still yearnin’ for more. We would never be satisfied with a life off a bike, and that, more than the leather and the cussin’ and the clubhouse, was what made a man a biker.

  My euphoria over the ride was tempered, though, by the fight that had broken out when I’d told the brothers in Church about my plan to offset the ambush.

  The Old Guard, as Mute and I used to call them, were vehemently opposed to what they called my “dumbass, arrogant” plan. They wanted to vote to call off the drug run entirely.

  Safe, easy, obvious.

  The requisites for any decision they made.

  I was not, as a rule, a fan of any’a those things.

  Yeah, my plan was reckless and ballsy, but it was also damned clever.

  If we could follow them after they grabbed our herb, we could discover the whereabouts of their warehouse and get an even bigger payout while still deliverin’ a valuable fuckin’ lesson in not messin’ with The Fallen MC.

  I wasn’t a fully patched-in member, so I wasn’t allowed to witness the vote, let alone cast my own. So while I’d waited in the bar again like some kid in time-out with Ransom, I’d been frustrated and angry that my plan wouldn’t pass.